Ice-Pick Lodge and publisher Lace Mamba Global characterize Cargo! as an absurd comedy with "musical numbers and dancing in the atmosphere of a mad carnival", promising a distinctive visual style and a plot with a false bottom. I'll let Ice-Pick Lodge set up the strange premise:

"Our world is beginning to drift apart in all directions, like balloons. People, buildings, mountains, trees and entire islands rise into the sky. Items with weight become the most valuable on the planet. But there is hope! "FUN", the magical extract of concentrated happiness, returns weight to items.

The source of FUN is suddenly discovered on a mysterious archipelago. Two reckless smugglers head there with a cargo of priceless machine parts that by miracle retained their weight, to trade them for FUN.

The Archipelago was created as a base for a new world after the Gods decided that the human race should be replaced after the human egoism led the planet to collapse. The Gods main task now is to inject more happiness into the world!

Since then however, the gods' skills have become out dated, their calculations were misguided and their goals have became unclear. They wanted the world to be held together with happiness  but forgot about FUN!

The gods were confused and frustrated, but haven't lost hope. Now they want to fix their mistakes and start again and turn Archipelago into the world they had dreamed of, with the help of a hero."

To help the hero, or heroine according to the provided artwork, you need to complete engineering tasks given to you by other characters, and invent and build contraptions from parts you find at junk yards. As you progress through the story, you'll learn more about the Gods, how everything lost its weight, and why all the fun comes from these mystery islands.

Expect Cargo! to ship in the fourth quarter of 2010; hopefully, we'll receive a lot more media than these bits of artwork soon!

KEY FEATURES
# Unique and innovative game principle
# 8 hours of story gameplay, plus unlimited sandbox gameplay# 10 different islands, a large underwater area, flying islands and numerous interior locations# Different seasons affect the gameplay and the handling of the vehicles
# Car races over frozen seas, motor boat races, daring flight maneuvers and deep-sea excursions
# Over 20 different building components that can be assembled to create crazy yet functional vehicles
# The player's music can be used in the game
# The physics-driven gameplay allows the player to find his own solution to each puzzle
# Intuitive and easily accessible controls# Suitable for the whole family

how do I slip unnoticed out of a gloryhole booth?

It seems like there is still a big focus on resource management and survival like their previous games.

Also TheLXR posted a couple of concept arts on Something Awful a while ago (before the announcement) that showed some robots and a trashed statue of liberty on a small island. The pictures are taken down now and I don't know if anyone re-upped them anywhere. :\

Another tidbit; This game is apparently a third person game, but in the video interview on the bonus disc for The Void Ice Pick lead designer Dybowskiy said that their games didn't have a third person perspective because he doesn't like it. QUESTIONS QUESTIONS....

Member

You know, the concept of fun has already changed, Granpa Bucktooth. Now it can have something to do with anything else other then fart jokes, dildos +1 to dexterity and drooling insects too, and without causing vertigo and cold chills to the player for the unintended occasional stimulation of the brain and the soul! :lol

how do I slip unnoticed out of a gloryhole booth?

KEY FEATURES
# Unique and innovative game principle
# 8 hours of story gameplay, plus unlimited sandbox gameplay# 10 different islands, a large underwater area, flying islands and numerous interior locations# Different seasons affect the gameplay and the handling of the vehicles
# Car races over frozen seas, motor boat races, daring flight maneuvers and deep-sea excursions
# Over 20 different building components that can be assembled to create crazy yet functional vehicles
# The player's music can be used in the game
# The physics-driven gameplay allows the player to find his own solution to each puzzle
# Intuitive and easily accessible controls# Suitable for the whole family

how do I slip unnoticed out of a gloryhole booth?

Firstly, gamershell is reporting that North American publishing is being handled by Viva Media and the game will be published under the name Cargo: The Quest for Gravity. Somewhat random public service announcement: Viva Media also published Gray Matter and The Whispered World. They're quite good, and probably of interest if you are in this this thread, reading this post.

Secondly, a blog post by Tom Jubert - who is a narrative designer that have worked on the Penumbra series - where he talks about going to visit Ice-Pick Lodge to drink vodka.
It's a nice read, here are two choice quotes

The core game seems like a simple (if sumptuous) explore 'em up, and I only get limited time with the vehicle design system, but the snippets of allegory arriving in my ear give me hope for the final script: this a world where the gods have replaced imperfect humanity with a race of altruistic ubermenchen, who turn out to be mindless midgets that must be kicked ad infinitum.

We talk about Ice Pick's next project (Cargo's deadline is in the next few weeks). It's a kind of bildungsroman charting the lives of a large number of characters over a great space of time. This alone makes it fascinating. There's unsubstantiated talk of applying the dynamic interaction of something like Minecraft to narrative. There's also reference to a great play as central inspiration. And I could tell you more - Ice Pick is the only professional developer I know not to bother with NDAs - but I'm not going to.